Marouen Bloggin' his Life

In my last post, I said I’ll write down some reports about the peaceful life in Mali and especially in Bamako. But what happened this Easter’s Sunday has changed a little bit my vision.

Everything has started by the important soccer match between Mali and Togo in Bamako. I’m not a real fan of soccer but at least I knew that Mali has to win to still on the process for the CAN and World Cup. Unfortunately, Mali has lost the match 2 to 1 and some seconds before the end, some supporters entered the camp and it was the starting of horrible night.

As you can read in this article of a national newspaper (sorry in French), you’ll have an idea of what happened. The hooligans the bars, restaurants, hostels near where I live were left upside down. Many persons took the occasion to steal, to rape and even to beat up the owners of these “richness symbols”. Even the hostel where I was living during my first month in Bamako was targeted.

Really, it was a disgusting evening and for a lot of my friends, it was a “revolt against poverty” and the result of the match was just the beginning of the fire.

The Tuesday, everything seems calm and it was the comeback to the common life I was used to during these 2 months.

After a very busy month in Mali, I think I should now remember my blog and all the persons waiting for my reports about Mali’s life. I think I have a lot to say but I don’t know how to start. Some days ago I found a good idea : to divide my reports into categories like (ie. The city, people, the food, telecommunications, transports …). Other posts will be related to the volunteer mission I’m doing here in Mali even if, according to the contract I signed in Geneva with my organisation, I’m not supposed to speak about some points but it’s not a problem since it’s far from the global aim of my project. I’ll write about this in My Civil Society Life section.

My next post will be entitled: Bamako, the big village.

I'm pleased to quote here the annoucement of the launch by ICV (International Conference Volunteers) of the official website of the Cybervolunteers Program in which I'm participating as the first international cybervolunteer (In Mali right now).

News Update, 14 March 2005

Dear Colleagues, Friends and Volunteers,

We are happy to announce that the CyberVolunteers Program is launching its new web site.

The CyberVolunteers Program recruits, trains and coordinates volunteers with information and communication technology skills for development. Volunteers participate in local, regional and international projects for a period of several weeks or months, offering their skills in areas such as web or software development, system administration and content generation.

The Program values in particular South-South exchanges, but also includes South-North and North-South cooperation, with projects in Mali, Senegal, Congo (Brazzaville), Uganda, South Africa, Tanzania, Cameroon, Mozambique, India, Switzerland. It is implemented by ICVolunteers (www.icvolunteers.org), an international volunteer organization working with volunteers from many countries around the world. The CyberVolunteers Program benefits from the patronage of UNESCO-Switzerland.

To learn more, visit http://cyber.icvolunteers.org

Do not forget to have a look on available positions section, who knows, maybe you'll have the chance to be the next cybervolunteer.

I'm pleased today to notice the creation of the first tunisian aggregator for blogs linked to the first Tunisian bloggers directory. It's also a good thing to notice the mixture between french and english posts (and arabic ones ni the future I guess).

Thank you HouHou for this initiative and long life to Tunisian Bloggers Family

PS: I'll be adding this picture to my blog template , beautifull don't you think ?

Before my trip to Geneva, I was supposed to make a presentation about the 1st Linux Install Fest in Tunisia during the "Compting Applied Days" (Journées de l'informatiques appliquées) organized by ISET Sfax on February 7,8 and 9. The theme of this year was related to the practical use of FOSS (Free and Open Souce Softwares). Anyway, the actual president of the club I founded (INSATech) repalced me for this presentation and I hope that everything was fine.

The presentation I prepared is available here (sorry only ni french)